A Highlander's Heart: A Sexy Regency Romance (Highland Knights Book 1) (13 page)

“What about Waterloo?” Mackenzie asked. “Did something happen to her there?”

“Perhaps it was too much for her—an Englishwoman of her breeding, seeing all that misery and pestilence,” Stirling commented.

“Nay,” Rob said harshly. “She’s strong. It wasna easy for any of us, but she wasna damaged by it. She’s a strong woman.”

“She seems to be.” Mackenzie frowned. “What then? Something must’ve devastated her.”

Rob rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes, trying to hide any emotion that might be showing in them.

She’d been thinking of Jamie. There was only one other time he’d seen Claire cry like that, and that was in the days after their wee babe had died.

He’d walked away then too. How do you solve the problem of your child dying? There was no solution. In those days, Rob had wanted nothing more than the ability to bring their son back for her. And for himself.

He had tried awkwardly to comfort Claire, but she wouldn’t be comforted. She wanted him gone. So when the regiment was called, he left, feeling impotent, useless, and completely empty.

He’d left her. If what Mackenzie and Stirling was telling him was true, he’d made a huge mistake.

“Ye ken what it was,” Stirling said softly. “What upset her.”

Rob gave him a grim look. “Aye. I might.”

Both Mackenzie and Stirling stared at him for a moment. When he didn’t volunteer anything further, Mackenzie said, “I ken why she left. You walked away from her first. She feels ye dinna care.”

Rob blinked at the younger man in surprise. Then he ground his teeth. “Nay. Not possible.”

Nothing…
nothing
had ever destroyed him more than watching his infant son take his last breath.
Nothing
.

Claire knew that. She must know.

“But ye walked away,” Stirling said softly. “Why should she think you care? Have you given her any indication that ye do?”

“Of course I—” He broke off.

He’d left her a week after Jamie died. She’d still been abed, recovering and overwhelmed by grief. He’d returned to Norsey House two months later to encounter an angry virago who hated him and never wished to see him again. Bewildered by her behavior, he’d nonetheless taken her words literally, and he’d left her again.

The next time he’d seen her was on the Waterloo battlefield.

He’d never understood why she suddenly despised him so much. Not until this moment. Because he’d left her. Because he’d given her no indication that he cared. He’d kept it all bottled up inside, trying to be strong for her sake.

And this morning, he’d left her again. Damn, but he was an idiot.

He stood abruptly. “I need to go to her.”

“Aye, you do,” Stirling said, rising.

“I’ll go with you, Major,” Mackenzie said. “I am fond of Lady Campbell, and I ken the other lads are as well. We all want her back.”

Stirling clapped Rob on the shoulder. “Dinna forget the petting.”

“Aye,” Mackenzie said, “the petting is important. But…” He gave Rob a keen look. “Whatever it is, ye must let her know that ye feel it as much as she does.”

Rob gave Mackenzie a hard look. How the hell would the lad know that?

Claire and her sister weren’t at their father’s Mayfair house, and no one would tell him where they’d gone. Her father wasn’t at home, but Rob recalled from his days living here that the earl spent Wednesday evenings in his club.

He and Mackenzie rushed to Boodles and banged on the door. The servant that answered, a narrow, pinched-faced man, gave them a haughty look. “Sirs.”

“I must speak with the Earl of Norsey.”

“The Earl of Norsey is occupied at the moment. And since you are not members of this establishment, I cannot allow you entry. Good night.” The man started to shut the door, but Rob stuck his foot in it so it wouldn’t close. The man looked down at Rob’s foot, his face twisted with annoyance.

“Sir, I—”

“My name is Major Sir Robert Campbell,” Rob said, stepping forward and leaning over the man, making him cower back. “I have just returned from Waterloo, where I fought in Wellington’s army, killed seven men with my claymore, and injured God knows how many others. I could crush ye like a bug and walk over your dead body and find Lord Norsey myself. But I’d rather not, ye ken?”

The man gulped.

“I’d rather ye run and bring Lord Norsey to me.
Now
.”

There was no hesitation on the man’s face. He scampered away. Mackenzie gave him an impressed look and blew out a low whistle.

Rob kept his back stiff and held his foot in the door. In no more than three minutes, the servant returned with the Earl of Norsey. The man’s gray brows rose when he saw Rob. He shooed away the servant, opened the door wider, and stood at the threshold.

“Campbell,” he said brusquely. His gaze passed over Mackenzie, but he didn’t greet him.

“Where’s Claire?” Rob growled.

The earl straightened. “Do you really wish to know?”

Rob smacked the wall beside the earl’s head with the flat of his hand, making the older man jump. “Aye, I do.”

The earl sighed, deflating. He suddenly looked old. Defeated. “She’s been through enough. Why can’t the two of you just leave each other in peace?”

Rob ground his teeth. “Nay. That isna going to happen. Not now. She’s my wife. She should be with me.”

“You’ve been married almost three years. You’re only now realizing this? You’re a fool, boy.”

“Aye, I am. And I’m trying to stop being a fool before it’s too late.”

“She’s in Kent,” the earl said tiredly, “at Norsey House. She wanted to be with your son.”

Your son.
Claire had gone to Norsey House to be with his son. Emotions slammed into Rob like a punch in the gut. He staggered backward, unable to breathe.

“Thank you,” he choked out. Then he turned to Mackenzie. “Let’s go.”

* * *

Claire and Grace arrived at Norsey House in the late afternoon. They were met by the housekeeper and several footmen, but Claire turned away as soon as they stepped out of the carriage.

“Claire, will you not at least have a bite to eat before you go out there?”

“No, thank you.”

Grace sighed. “Do you want me to come?”

“No.” Claire tried to smile at her sister, but that didn’t quite work. “I just want to be alone with him for a while,” she said quietly. “I’ll be back at the house before dark.”

“Be home by dark,” Grace warned, “or I’m coming after you.”

Claire could feel her sister’s worried eyes on her as she walked the length of the grand Tudor-style house, painted white with black timbers, with its diamond-paned windows and enormous capped chimneys. She turned and took two steps along the side of the house before stopping to catch her breath and blink furiously. It was the first time in hours Grace hadn’t been fretting over her like a mother hen.

She stared up at the summer sky. The air was a bit damp after a morning rain, and the ground sodden beneath her shoes, but the sky was a brilliant blue and the air was warm and so much cleaner than the air in London.

After a moment, she began walking again. Foxglove and baby’s breath bloomed along the edges of the path, and Claire collected the best blooms until her arms were full.

When she reached the chapel about a half a mile from the house, she walked around to the back, where the Earls of Norsey and their families had been buried for hundreds of years. Among the stones, she easily found her son’s little one.

She knelt beside him and set to work arranging the flowers beside his stone, tears streaming down her face.

* * *

The air was growing cooler by the time Rob approached the chapel behind Norsey House. It was almost dusk, and when he and Mackenzie had arrived, he’d learned that Claire had come here hours earlier and hadn’t been seen since.

Rob’s breath caught when he saw her. She was so beautiful. And at the same time, the way she knelt beside their son’s grave was so heartbreaking, his gut clenched so hard he nearly doubled over.

The grave was covered with white and blue flowers. He couldn’t read the headstone from here, but he knew what it said:

James Robert Campbell

died 12 July, 1814

aged 2 weeks

Life how short, Eternity how long.

Rob had held Jamie, wrapped tightly in a plaid, for the first time moments after he was born. Staring down at his tiny face, Rob was certain he was the bonniest and most perfect babe to ever be born into this world. But soon it grew clear that there was something wrong. That Jamie was struggling for each breath he took.

The doctor said he’d been born with weak lungs, but after watching the lad battle bravely through a few days, he’d given them hope that Jamie might survive. By the tenth day after his birth, however, Jamie’s fingernails and lips had turned blue with his struggle. One the evening of the fifteenth day, Rob had been holding him for the last time as he’d taken his final, weak breath, and the life had whispered out of his wee body.

Now, swallowing hard, Rob approached Claire. The crunch of his feet on the grass must have alerted her to his presence, but she didn’t turn away from their son’s grave.

He lowered himself to his knees beside her, wishing he’d brought flowers like she had. But he had nothing.

She didn’t look at him. He swallowed, trying to gather some moisture into his dry throat. “It’s his birthday tomorrow,” he whispered.

She placed a hand on the edge of the grave, a possessive gesture. “You haven’t mentioned it. I was sure you had forgotten.” Her voice was hoarse from lack of use.

He’d deserved that. He clasped his hands in his lap and looked down at them. “I shouldna left you like that this morning.”

She shrugged. “I expected it.” She turned to look at him for the first time, frowning. “But I didn’t expect to see you here. Why are you here?” Her voice was flat now, devoid of emotion. Which was almost as bewildering to him as her tears.

“For you,” he said, repeating her words to him at Waterloo. “And for him,” he added softly, placing his own protective palm on the grave.

She stiffened. “You should go.”

“Nay.”

“I want you to go,” she said.

“Not this time. I wilna leave you.”

“That is what you do, Rob. You leave.”

“Aye. I thought I was helping by leaving.”

She snorted. “How’s that, exactly?”

“Ye told me to go. The workings of a woman’s mind make no sense to me, Claire. Ye say ye wish me gone, but what you’re really saying is that ye wish me to stay.”

She dashed moisture from her eyes with the back of her hand. “Go. Just go. I don’t want to have this discussion. I just want to be with my baby. Leave me alone.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Go!” she shouted, her voice throbbing with an emotion he knew now not to mistake as anger. No, it was pain, thick and deep, that surged through her.

“Nay.”

She pushed him, but he held firm, catching her arm and bringing it gently to her side. When he let go, she pushed him again. And then she hit his chest. When that didn’t move him, she hit him again and again, crying loudly, punching him with as much power as her wee body could muster. He grabbed her, encircling his arms around her.

She struggled, trying to wiggle out of his grip. “No,” she sobbed. “Let me go. Leave me alone.”

“Nay, love. I’ll no’ be leaving you,” he murmured. “Shhh.” He held her tightly against him.

“Why are you here?” she demanded on a sob. “You don’t even care about him.”

Rob closed his eyes. “I loved him. I love him.”

“No, you don’t. You didn’t even cry when he died. And then…then you just left us. You left him, and you left me.”

He squeezed her to him. “I’ve never cared about anything the way I care about you and wee Jamie.”

“That isn’t true!”

“It is.”

She gripped his upper arms, her nails digging into the fabric of his shirt. “Then why didn’t you weep?”

“I…” He swallowed hard, the emotion boiling so strongly in his throat he could barely speak. “I wanted to be strong for you. You needed me to be strong for you.”

“I needed you to
feel
. To feel what I was feeling.”

“I did, Claire. I felt it all.”

“But you left.”

“You told me to leave.”

“I know I did! But—” The fight drained out of her all of a sudden. “I wanted you to stay. To be with me and mourn with me,” she said quietly.

“I was mourning with you, love.”

“But you didn’t show it.”

“And ye took it to mean I didna care?”

“Yes!”

He pulled her against him. “Good God, Claire. You canna know how much I cared. How much it destroyed me to see him, then to see what it did to you. And then when ye told me to go, I was at such a loss what to do. I thought the only way I could make it better was to do what ye wished for me to do, which was to leave you.”

She pressed her forehead against his shoulder. “I wanted to ask you to stay. I kept telling myself to beg you to stay close to me, to hold me. But you were so stoic, and I thought you must not be very affected, and I couldn’t bring myself to beg.”

He stroked her hair. “I hated to see you like that. Hurting so deeply. And I couldna do anything about it…and it made me feel so…” A breath hissed out through his teeth.

“I should have held on to you,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t have let you go. Instead, I pushed you away.”

“Watching Jamie go and no’ being able to stop it… Then watching you suffer. I…I…” His voice wavered. “I wanted to be…strong. But I was weak. I couldna fix anything. I couldna save my son. I couldna help my wife. I’d failed. And I was a coward too. I ran.”

His chest convulsed. “I just…wanted him to live. I prayed so hard for it. And he didn’t…and…I didna ken what to do. I was…lost.”

This was the first time he’d said any of this aloud. It was the first time he’d allowed himself to think any of it.

The first tear slipped down his cheek. The first moisture to well in his eyes since his childhood.

And then he and his wife clung to each other and wept.

When darkness finally cast velvety shadows over the graves, they said good night to Jamie and walked back to Norsey House together, hand in hand. Claire felt raw and sensitive all over, as if she’d been scrubbed with a harsh brush. But she also felt cleansed.